Frequently Asked Questions
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What's the
idea?
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Is this for
real?
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Is this the
authentic record-breaking
domain?
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How did you come up with
the name?
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What makes
this domain so
special?
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Isn't this
domain a little too long to be
valuable?
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I can offer you
$12,000,000, will you sell it to me?
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Why have you raised the price from $7,500,001 to $12,000,001?
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Who are
you?
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Why are you
doing
this?
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How'd you
come up with the
idea?
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Do you
seriously think someone will
actually buy this
domain?
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Who do you
think will buy this
domain?
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How long do
you think this record will last
once someone buys this
Domain?
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What will keep you or anyone from
repeating this feat after someone
buys this
Domain?
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What will you
do with the
money?
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How long will the domain be
online?
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Are you
worried about
copy-cats?
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Do you
currently hold any World
Records?
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Are you
dedicating this World Record
attempt to
anyone?
What's the
idea?
To break the World Record for the most expensive piece of internet real estate by selling this domain name for $1 more than the current record thus creating the most watched Ad in history while donating over $9 million to charity and giving $1 million to a lucky supporter. Sound simple enough?
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Is this for
real?
Absolutely. Do I
sound like I'm
kidding?
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Is this the authentic
record-breaking
domain?
Yes.
this idea is 100% my own
and I am the first person
after Marc Ostrofsky to
officially register this
world record breaking
attempt with Guinness World
Records. Also, the Guinness category
for this record is "Most
Expensive Internet Domain
Name." Now go to MostExpensiveInternetDomainName.com.
That's how you know.
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How did you come up with the name?
It was a lot harder than you might think. I needed a catchy name that was really easy to remember, would make a great logo, and that would grow on people the more they thought about it. I also needed a name that was self-describing as far as the record was concerned, but that did not reveal what the site the new buyer created would actually be about. See, business.com and sex.com are the opposite. They don't reveal they're the current record holders, yet they reveal what their site is about, which does not make people curious enough to visit them (although people might be curious to visit sex.com for completely different reasons!). I also needed to create a completely new domain name that was 100% unique so it would allow me to register all its variations and avoid any confusion with any other pre-existing domain name. There is no point in making it a name that might confuse people because the last thing the buyer of this domain will want is for other sites to benefit from their investment at their own cost. For example, there is no point in making it "TheRecordBreaker.com" if "RecordBreaker.com" is taken because people might forget to put the "the" in front and end up at the wrong site. Also, I own "RecordBreaking.com" but I won't make that the record-breaking domain because people might type in "Record-Breaking.com" (with a hyphen) and I don't own that. So I needed a name which would be 100% unique so I could register every single variation of it myself and avoid any and all confusion. This way, no matter how people choose or remember to type it in, they will be taken to this domain. Try it out: RecordBreaking.com, RecordBreakingDomain.com, TheRecord-BreakingDomain.com, Record-BreakingDomain.com, The-Record-Breaking-Domain.com, TheRecordBreakingDomainName.com....it doesn't matter how you type it in, as long as you remember that this is the record-breaking domain, because you're going to reach this site anyway. Damn, I love that name!
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What makes this domain so special?
Two things: the curiosity factor and the awesome support that's building behind this domain. One without the other is not enough to make this domain worth more than business.com and sex.com. You need both elements, and only this domain will ever have that. Anyone could come up with another curious domain and attempt to sell it for millions. But only I, as the originator of this idea, am able to rally support behind a record-breaking domain name to sell it for millions. If anyone else attempts it, it's old news, and won't get any support. The curiosity factor is crucial too. Everyone would want to know how and why TheRecordBreakingDomain.com became the record-breaking domain, so they would visit it just to find out, giving the new owner more visitors than they could ever dream of.
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Isn't this domain a little too long to be valuable?
Not at all. Most people in the domain name business think that only short, one word domains are of any value because they're the easiest to remember. I want to challenge that notion. First of all, many visitors to this domain will be coming here from links on other sites (e.g. news sites), so they won't even have to remember or type-in this domain to get here. Second, my domain name is as easy to remember as many one-word domains. You only need to hear my domain name once and it sticks in your head. Plus, a domain is really worth what someone will pay for it and is as valuable as the publicity it gets and the brand power behind it, regardless of the length...and my domain will be getting A LOT of publicity. My domain is unique, self-describing, to the point, and easily remembered...and, c'mon, it's a lot juicier than business.com and more intriguing than sex.com! And if you ever saw it in the Guinness Book of World Records, it would SHOCK you so much, you'd actually pay it a visit...and that's exactly what I'm going for...
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I can offer you $12,000,000, will you sell it to me?
No. This is TheRecordBreakingDomain.com so I will not sell it for anything less than a record-breaking price. Get a friend to lend you a buck.
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Why have you raised the price from $7,500,001 to $12,000,001?
Although the current Guinness World Record price for the most expensive domain name is $7,500,000, Sex.com was sold in January 2006 for a reported $12 million. Although they did not prove that to Guinness, the media and the public recognized it as the most expensive domain. No buyer would pay $7,500,001 for a record-breaking domain knowing full well that the public and media consider Sex.com to be the most expensive domain. Therefore, my only recourse was to raise the price. This is more symbolic, than exact science, since the exact details of the sex.com sale were never disclosed, however, its high enough that the media and public will recognize it as a record-breaking price and, of course, so will Guinness as soon as we prove it.
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Who are you?
I'm a 44 year old Internet entrepreneur who quit his day job as a boring financial consultant to make a living on the latest capitalist frontier. I hate regular jobs and like being my own boss. I'm as international as the Internet itself. I was born in Argentina, have a Spanish passport, yet have Estonian blood and have lived in Boston, Montreal, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, and Sydney. My first language is English although my native language is Spanish. I also speak fluent Portuguese and a little French. Just don't ask me where I'm from cuz I have no idea. :) I did two years of Computer Science at Tufts University in Boston but ended up with a Bachelor of Commerce and a double-major in Finance and Management from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. If you want to know anything else about me, just e-mail me or ask me in the forum. I'm friendlier than a poodle.
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Why are you doing this?
Uhm, because I can. Why not? I'm not going to lie to you, all my life I've wanted to be rich...those who know me well can attest to that...and if I can do it before I'm 30 and give millions away to my supporters and charity at the same time while breaking a world record, even better! I'm also doing this for the absolute adrenaline, because I love the thrill of a good challenge and, believe me, selling this domain for the record-breaking amount is going to be the biggest challenge of my life. I wouldn't mind becoming a World Record holder either.
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How did you come up with the idea?
I was actually browsing the Guinness World Records site and saw the world record for Most Expensive Internet Domain Name. I just sat there and thought to myself, hey, this guy is getting a lot of free publicity for being the record-holder, and the idea was born. I had to come up with a domain name and TheRecordBreakingDomain.com had a good ring to it. Seriously though, why should Marc, the current record-holder, get to have all the fun and make millions from the sale of business.com? Fair enough, he had a pretty damn good domain name. But I want to have my cake and eat it too. Difference is, I will have to MAKE mine worth millions through publicity and a great idea, not intrinsic value.
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Do you seriously think someone will actually buy this Domain?
Of course! But not right a way, though, because the buyer will wait to see what kind of attention this gets before deciding to buy it. This is why I need your support. When you think about it, though, $12,000,001 is only equivalent to a two and a half minute television commercial during the Super Bowl, yet this domain and the publicity it will experience has a lot longer shelf life, greater impact, and much more overall juice. Coke spent $13 million in advertising for the 2006 Super Bowl and Oscars. Those are one-shot advertisements. They could get a lot more bang for their buck buying this domain, and they'd save a cool million too. And here's the paradox. This domain is worth nothing unless someone buys it for the record-breaking amount. Yet as soon as someone buys it, they break the record, and instantly make it worth that much from the publicity alone. That's what's so intriguing about it. So whoever buys it will have realized this beforehand.
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Who do you think will buy this domain?
Maybe a billionaire who has everything in the world except a World Record. Maybe an online casino hungry for a new publicity stunt (although I think this is too big even for the likes of the Golden Palace). Maybe even a serious multinational corporation that realizes the great bang-for-the-buck of this type of publicity and wants to put an Ad here for their latest product. Or perhaps a small island country in the Pacific looking to revive their tourism industry. The most obvious seems to be a domain registrar company seeking to establish its dominance or the very own Guinness World Records looking to claim the title and link it to its own site. Whoever it is, I am sure we'll soon find out, and the whole world will be watching...
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How long do you think this record will last once someone buys this domain?
A VERY long time, if not forever. There is no indication that any domain is for sale at anywhere near this price. If the buyer is worried that $1 is too small a buffer to break and maintain the record, they can always buy it for more, but I personally don't think that's necessary. This is a once-in-a-lifetime concept. All imitations will be worthless. The only domain names that could conceivably be worth more than Sex.com, are domains that are part of well-established brands, such as Google.com. However, since such a company has a lot more to gain from the services provided through the domain than any sale of the domain could generate, they would never sell it and therefore this is not a realistic threat.
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What will keep you or anyone from repeating this feat after someone buys this domain?
The fact that they won't be successful. No one likes a copy cat or unoriginal ideas. A repeat of this feat won't get any publicity. The Internet is hungry for original ideas. Copy cats end up nowhere. Also, once this domain is sold, that's it, the one and only record-breaking domain will already be taken. The allure for repeating it will have been lost since the novelty of the idea will no longer exist. People will shrug off any further attempts as a "copy cat" and ignore it. It will lack the publicity reserved strictly for original ideas and required for someone to pay millions. The reason this idea will have so much publicity is because no one has thought of it or done it before. Once it is done, this will no longer be the case.
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What will you do with the money?
$9,500,001 will go to charity and another $1,500,000 will go to my supporers. That leaves me with a cool $1 million. What will I do with my million bucks? What any entrepreneur does: invest it in new businesses.
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How long will this domain be online?
Forever.
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Are you worried about copy-cats?
Well, there's already at least 2 copy-cats and you haven't heard of them, so no I'm not worried about copy-cats. :) There can only be ONE record-breaking domain. And this is it. No other copy-cat will be able to match the momentum building behind my domain. I mean, someone could register SuperDuperDomain.com and try and sell it for $12,000,002, but they won't get any support or publicity for it, so it won't go anywhere. Accept no imitations.
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Do you currently hold any World Records?
No, not even close. This will be my first...but definitely not my last.
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Are you dedicating this World Record attempt to anyone?
Yes, I am dedicating this World Record attempt to my girlfriend, Aleksandra, (sorry ladies, I'm taken :) and to all the young entrepreneurs out there who have a BIG and original idea but aren't sure what to do with it. In the wise words of Nike, JUST DO IT! Remember: Entrepreneurship is not a Profession. It's a lifestyle. (You can quote me on that one :)
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